A COMMERCIAL POINT OF VIEW. 39 



for instance, one thousand breeding fowls ; they will lay 

 about one hundred and fifty thousand eggs per annum 

 under ordinary circumstances. Now, supposing a fowl 

 to sit twice in the course of the year, she could, there- 

 fore, not rear, allowing for casualties, more than twenty 

 chickens : this would give only twenty thousand chickens 

 per annum ; whereas, with the assistance of artificial 

 means, the remaining one hundred and thirty thousand 

 eggs could also be hatched, and in lieu of twenty thou- 

 sand there could be produced at least one hundred and 

 thirty thousand chickens, allowing also for casualties. 

 What a result from science applied to practical pur- 

 poses ! 



Sceptics will of course say it looks very well on paper, 

 but it will never do it has been tried before and failed. 

 Now, for such reasoning there are endless facts that have 

 forced themselves upon public consideration under similar 

 circumstances ; to my own recollection I have heard man- 

 ufacturers say that they should never give up hand-looms 

 for power-looms, that the goods turned out did not come 

 up to hand-woven : I have seen those who refused to fol- 

 low the current of improvements swept away from the 

 list of once notabilities. 



Up to this very day many object to gas, and will not 

 allow it to be a great improvement on our old oil-lamps ; 

 yet were gas ceased to be manufactured to-morrow, what 

 would be the general feeling? For railways and steam- 

 boats to cease running, and to have to revert to our old 

 stage-coaches and sailing-ships, would be not only intoler- 

 able, but perfectly impossible. 



I might adduce hundreds more parallels, with a view 



